haircuts & teacups
by Clone Number 5
Summary: 5 questions Katara doesn't ask Zuko.


**haircuts & teacups**

1.

The day after Black Sun, after his uncle is murdered, Zuko walks into their camp with his sister's blood on his broadswords.

_Whose side are you on, anyway?_

It's one of the first coherent thoughts that pop into Katara's head.

(Just before, _you could really use a haircut_.)

2.

Zuko drinks tea.

Katara supposes that it only makes sense. Or at least, it _should_ make sense. He worked in a _teashop_ once upon a time ago, right? It makes sense.

Only, it doesn't.

For some reason, this bothers her. There's no logical explanation, it's just ... there. A nagging question in the back of her mind, itching to know why this strange fact has suddenly left a spot on her picture of him.

So maybe that's why some (every) evenings her eyes drift to him during dinner, watching him drink in silence out of the corner of her eyes. He has always sat just on the edge of their circle, to her right and just at the fringes of the commotion. It is the only time Katara ever sees his stoic face twist in some kind of emotion these days, though she thinks that it's a pity that it's sad.

One night, she finally decides to be brave. "Are you willing to share?"

Though he seems slightly staggered, Zuko pours her a cup and wordlessly hands it over. The heat of the porcelain warms the inside of her palms. She takes a careful sip, her eyes on the campfire.

_Oh my –_

Mostly to be polite, Katara manages to force the foul liquid down her throat without shuddering. (She does emit a barely audible gagging sound, though, and Toph arches an eyebrow.)

Okay. So, clearly Zuko was _not_ the one making the tea in that shop.

"I didn't know that you liked tea," she comments under the chatter of her brother and Aang, to cover that she can't find a compliment for this…er, whatever she's drinking.

Zuko doesn't hesitate in his answer, but his face is tense in the darkness. As though he is holding everything inside himself together as tightly as he possibly can.

He murmurs back softly, only for her –

"I don't."

Zuko drinks tea, and after several more nights of quiet conversations Katara doesn't need to ask why.

3.

This is a memory –

Of when they fought in the North Pole, and she had just learned the strange miracle of healing.

He'd had dark bruises splattered across his skin.

When they fought, she had shown him no mercy.

When he beat her, mocking and cruel as though she were barely a person, she had not expected her eyes to open again, had not expected his mercy –

_Why do you make it so hard to hate you sometimes?_

4.

Katara has never considered herself to be the impatient type.

But, she swears to the Spirits, if Zuko doesn't just kiss her already, she's going to pull her damn hair out.

It was cute at first, how they had danced around each other. How each "accidental" touch had left her skin simultaneously burning and tingling. His restraint had been endearing, if not a little surprising from someone who had never had a problem forwardly asking for what he wanted.

Now?

Now she glowers at him secretly from over her tea, and watches the way his lips move when he talks to Aang.

_Why won't you kiss me?_

Two days later Katara's patience wears down and she takes matters into her own hands.

5.

They're splitting up.

It's the only way that this will work, as Sokka had said last night. Someone was going to need to go with Aang to face Ozai while they fought off the guards, someone who knew the palace schematics well enough to sneak up on the Fire Lord. Someone who will sacrifice himself to keep Aang safe, when the guards inevitably make their ambush.

They hadn't even needed to ask him to do it.

Katara stares up to meet his gaze, her face lit by the gray light of the coming dawn. Her jaw hurts from how much she's clenching it.

The words are burning in the back of her throat – _will you come back? _– but she swallows them down, because they both know the answer. They both know what this is.

_A suicide mission_, Katara thinks, as her fingers trace his scar. The irony of history repeating is too cruel to linger on.

"Be careful."

It's all she can really ask of him.

Morning finally breaks, and orange spills across the sky like bloodshed as they kiss.


End file.
